Saturday, 17 December 2011

I haven't made anything in a long time. And it's been even longer since I did any beading (a good 5 years at least). When I first learned how to do beading, I started with peyote stitch. It's been more constistently the one stitch I go back to all the time just because it's pretty easy and doesn't require equipment of any kind.

Because I hoard the first thing I made in any technique (I have plans of one day making a crazy quilt with a lot of this junk in it) and because I love it, I still have the first thing I ever made in peyote stitch:

I made this bracelet when I was about 20. I saw a picture of a similar one in a magazine and like everything, thought I could make that. So I learned peyote stitch in order to make it, not knowing that the wider something is, the more difficult it is to keep it even. Anyway, I stitched it loose (which I always liked because it's kind of drapey) and made a lot of mistakes, but I always really loved the bracelet. It is huge-at least 2.5" wide (though not consistently as you can see) and it really reflects my philosophy of trying new things. That being when you are first learning a technique you should try the hardest thing you possibly can just to see if you can do it. If it looks good you can pat yourself on the back because of your mad skillz. And if it looks terrible, you can blame the difficulty of the pattern rather than your lack of said mad skillz.

Anyway, the bracelet is getting very raggedy and has had to be repaired several times, so to distract myself from the fact that there is currently nothing in my life that doesn't make me utterly miserable, I decided to make another one. I didn't want to rip that one up (the hoarding) so I picked out new beads to make a second one.

These are the tests I did with different bead combinations. At first I didn't like the one with the silver lined turquoise (at the bottom), but it has definitely grown on me. I think I just didn't like the fact that it was very different than the original. Out of the combos I settled on, I used mostly Japanese beads (prefer the rounded cylindrical shape of the non-delicas) but the perfect turquoise I found was a Czech. Caused some problems because a) the doughnut shape and b) I accidentally bought a size 10 instead of 11 like the rest, but hey it makes things interesting. The pictures don't do the frosty opacity of that turquoise bead justice (the one drawback of my phone is that its camera is frankly crap). It's a really pleasing colour.

The new version. It's pretty wavy and not so even, due partly to the differences in beads and the width of the weaving, but turned out pretty well. It also was a fair bit shorter than the original so it just fits on my wrist (and as mem knows I have the Moore toothpick wrists, so it's small).

See?

This picture really doesn't capture well how different they look. The silverlined reds do show up nicely in the newer cuff though. One more of them together to show a little of the contrast: